Happiness vs Joy

Wait-a-minute, Happiness vs Joy? Aren’t they the same thing?

Vibrationally, happiness and joy are so similar you can hardly tell them apart, somewhere around the mid-500 range. We get them confused because they feel the same, though they are quite different.

Happiness

Happiness is a feeling you feel passively, like if you think of holding an adorable new baby who is fascinated with your face, with its firm grip around your finger, or being in a room full of happy, celebratory children (who are not out of control), going to a (non-offensive) comedy show, or concert.

All these things (or whatever the equivalent is for you) make us feel happy by the brain’s administering the release of the happy hormones, oxytocin, dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine. Who wouldn’t be happy after being injected with this happiness cocktail.

Happiness comes from external sources, whether they are imagined, witnessed live, or self-inflicted. That is to say, you can visualize something in your mind that you have witnessed live and still release the same happy hormones, you can watch a movie, post on social media, self-administer some substance, or otherwise trick your brain into releasing them.

However, you feel happy, it’s all good because knowing how to be happy and achieving the state of happiness is an awesome state of mind and it is so much better than not being happy at all. Happiness is a relatively easy state of mind to achieve if you want to feel better.

Good thing for us mere mortals, we can find ways to get ourselves into this happy state, particularly if we’re not feeling happy, or finding it difficult to find any happiness at all. We know there are things we can do to get a shot of the good stuff.

Joy

Then, there is joy, which releases the same hormonal cocktail, but it has a decidedly different feature of having an active component, which happiness doesn’t require.

Enjoying something is not a passive observance, it is an active participation, it includes the action of doing something to achieve the state of joy. For instance, for artist-types, getting lost in the creation process sustains the state of joy. For the sports enthusiasts, actually playing a round of golf, or taking a hike, or a little volleyball on the beach, whatever your thing is, doing it takes you to that place of joy.

For those with a motherly instinct (even if you’re a man), actually holding and interacting with a baby takes you to joy, while merely thinking about it makes you happy.

To enjoy something comes from within, the feeling in your gut which vibrates throughout your whole being when you are actively engaged in doing something you love to do. Joy is seated in your heart and lights a fire that spreads throughout your entire system.

The joy of enjoyment has a more self-sustaining mechanism due to having the activity associated with many psychological and physiological components. The more active and focused your various skills and attention is, the more sustained the state is, as well as more easily and effectively triggered via recall.

For instance, happiness will take a bit of imagination to re-establish the state and release the hormones, while recalling a joyous activity can trigger the release at the mere mention or thought of it.

Both happiness and joy are essential to achieving your highest and best while experiencing all the good things this life has to offer. Living a better life will have you experiencing both enjoying activities more as well as being happier most of the time.

Here’s to more happiness and joy for you,

-Amen.

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